An animator may create movement of an object, such as an animated character or a robot, by selecting several pre-animated clips or paths of motion for the object. In many cases, the pre-animated clips do not provide a continuous path of motion. Rather, a transition is required between two clips such that the object's motion appears natural and does not jump suddenly between different states.
One type of transition requires a previous motion of an object to end at a home position such that a subsequent motion begins movement of the object from the home position. However, this type of transitioning does not reflect natural character movement because, using this approach, a moving part of an object repeatedly returns to the same position before another movement is initiated. In this regard, it would appear more natural to continue the movement from the end point of the previous motion.
Some types of object movement include a blend of pre-animated clips and puppeted motion where the animation has a relative position to the puppeted motion. However, “pops” may appear in the animation when the image of the first or last frame of a transition does not exactly match the first or last frame of an animated clip or the puppeteering. While this may be acceptable in a digital environment, an attempt to suddenly move from one position to a discontinuous position may cause the malfunction of a electro-mechanical robotic system that includes motors and gears.
Pre-computed motions may be sequenced together by calculating a transition to connect two different graphs of an animation variable that describe motion of an object over a period of time. One movement function for an animation variable may end at a first position and, after a time delay, a subsequent movement function for the same animation variable may begin at a different position. Thus, in some cases, a transition may be calculated to provide a smooth variable transition between the two movement functions. However, in most cases, the calculated transition does not appear natural due to an obvious change in the character's motion.
Accordingly, what is desired are improved methods for solving some of the problems discussed above. Additionally, what is desired are improved methods for reducing some of the drawbacks discussed above.